An image from declassified documents related to UFOS released by the CIA. This is from Sheffield, England, in 1962. (CIA)

(Newser)
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With the revival of TheX-Files already proving to be one of 2016's most popular shows, everyone's jumping on the bandwagon, including the CIA. Fox News reports the CIA recently drew attention to some of the documents related to UFOs it first declassified in 1978. A blog post by the CIA highlights "five documents we think X-Files character Agent Fox Mulder would love to use to try and persuade others of the existence of extraterrestrial activity" and "five documents we think his skeptical partner, Agent Dana Scully, could use to prove there is a scientific explanation for UFO sightings."

The "Mulder" documents include 1952 UFO sightings in East Germany—a father and daughter spotted a UFO in a field accompanied by two men in shiny suits (PDF here); Spain—a newspaper office was "flooded" with calls about a smoke-trailing UFO (PDF here); and the Belgian Congo—a fighter plane chased after two UFOs making inhumanly abrupt changes in course (PDF here). Most of the CIA's declassified UFO documents come from the 1940s and 1950s, and Live Science notes that this isn't a surprise as the imaginations of people at the time were running rampant with sci-fi movies, the space race, and the Cold War. In most of the reported cases, it adds, "expert investigators uncovered reasonable explanations for the sightings," such as missile tests or cloud formations. Scully would be proud. (Now about those weird space balls in Vietnam.)

Even still, the government will only release limited and controlled tidbits of information

Marion Emory

Jan 31, 2016 11:46 AM CST

What's really strange, is that in all this revitalized talk of suspected extraterrestrial events, there is no mention of The Great Air Raid of Los Angeles in 1942. It's really the most significant event that rules out military testing, considering the military shot at whatever it was for hours, thinking the U.S. was under attack.